Micro Theater, Macro Complaints

The Scene: Miami

Tuesday, March 25, 2014 - 08:00 AM

The Spanish Cultural Center in downtown Miami is turning complaints into theater.

The center hosts Micro Theater, 15-minute plays performed inside graffiti-covered shipping containers. The series goes on year round, but changes its repertoire every five weeks. In conjunction with the Wolfsonian-FIU's Power of Design festival, this season's theme is complaints.

There are seven of the containers lined up next to each other in a lot just off Biscayne Blvd. The containers have a capacity of 15 people not including the actors, who are sometimes just inches from viewers' faces. "Every container has a play where they either say the word [complaint] or they show it or they suggest a complaint," said one of this season's directors, Carlos Salazar.

This season the center received 70 plays from Miami, Spain and South America. From those 70, they chose 14 to be produced. All 14 plays chosen were in Spanish. The plays are then put on by local actors and directors.

All of the plays center around the same theme of complaints, but each one interprets it differently. Some of the storylines include relationship complaints, complaints about God and complaints about being in jail. "For you, complaining could be something, for me, something else," said another director, Anna Silvetti. "So there's comedy, there's drama, there's melodrama. There's a lot of different ways of looking at the same thing."

The complaint plays are happening Thursday-Sunday nights through March 30.